So as republican socialists we should promote a real alternative.
And I have been looking at length at the writings of Hal Draper, an American Marxist -an innovative, independently minded thinker.
Draper says that throughout history the real division in socialism had not been so much the division between reformism and revolution.
The real division has been the one between socialism from above and socialism from below.
His TWO SOULS OF SOCIALISM which came out in 1966 says social democracy -i.e. Fabianism/Labourism/the Morrisonian model- on the one hand and Stalinism on the other have much in common despite the obvious differences.
*They share a distrust of the working class
*Workers aren't viewed as being capable of creating a new society on their own initiative
*Socialism must be handed down to the masses by a ruling elite
*Socialism is about what the state does for workers supposedly for their benefit and on their behalf.
Socialism from below -by contrast- is about workers self emancipation.
*Mobilising through struggle
*Workers as actors, not subjects
*Taking charge of their own destiny
And it is the whole notion, Draper says, of WORKERS' CONTROL, what were are talking about here today, that distinguishes grassroots socialism -organised from below- from discredited top down socialism from above.